Strike up the band lists
[Surf's Up, as published in The Telegram, on Friday, April 8, 2005. Click here to read Surf's Up columns posted to Dot Dot Dot.]
Everybody loves a bargain ― but I really love what I call a bargoon. You know, one of those deals where you almost feel like you’re stealing.
I picked one up a little while ago: the Rough Guide's volume on rock music, a thick, hefty encyclopedia on singers, bands and the like. My copy had a dog-eared cover … enough, anyway, for the bookstore to slash its price, with about 80 per cent cut off the $35 cover price.
Call it reverse sticker shock. It's a good book, too.
And imagine my surprise when I learned it was all on the web, for free.
Rough Guide: Music
Rough Guide evidently produces a series of works on different topics; the pop music book, for what it's worth, is different from other music anthologies in that all of the entries are written not by journalists or historians, but fans. Fire-breathing, detail-obsessed fans, I would suggest.
I have no regrets about buying the Rough Guide in book form (it's made for premium bedtime reading), but I'm quite happy to know there's an online version available, too, especially as it gets updated regularly. Shopping links are also provided for recommended releases.
Fake Band List
You won't find Spinal Tap or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the Rough Guide … but you'll find them here, in the Fake Band List. Indeed, more than just fictional bands are identified. There are also made-up musicians, from Gilda Radner's punk rocker Candy Slice (now, there's a memory) to Schroeder, Beethoven's biggest fan and the apple of Lucy's eye. (If you like what you see on this site, watch out for the book version, Rocklopedia Fakebandica.)
Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names
http://web.media.mit.edu/~bwhitman/10000.html
Fake Band List links to this page, built a few years ago by a staffer at the fabled MIT Media Lab. It consists of possible (but definitely not probable) band names, and it is a riot to read … especially out loud.
The site formerly known as Ultimate Band List
If you bookmarked the Ultimate Band List, you don't get the old site anymore … you get rerouted to Artist Direct Network, which still has all of the old information and links aplenty, but is much more inclined to try to sell you something. It's still a very useful tool for music fans.
Music Map
Music Map is a cool thing to see unfold. Type in a band you like, and watch the site present a shimmering array of other artists that are similar. I typed in Great Big Sea, and the resulting map had Blue Rodeo and Big Sugar in close proximity (no surprise), as well as Norma Waterson (who?) and Harry Chapin (what?!). Well, it's still fascinating, and yes indeed, you will likely be directed to some artists you may not know about.
Elsewhere this week
Business of Baseball
I'm not the biggest baseball fan in the world, by any means, but I do get caught up in things (I still have Red Sox-inspired pinch marks from last fall). Business of Baseball is a must for die-hard fans, who juggle statistics, history and other lore in their minds.
Abandoning the News
www.carnegie.org/reporter/10/news/index.html
As a journalist (especially working with online media), I'm naturally interested in trends involved readership and audiences. Whether you're reading these words on a newspaper page or a computer screen (either works for me), perhaps you've also thought about how young people today are accessing their news. Then again, perhaps you're not. If you haven't been thinking about this kind of stuff, this report may well change that.
Pulitzer Prize winners
www.pulitzer.org/cyear/2005w.html
Still with journalism: the very best of U.S. reporting, with the 2005 winners of the Pulitzer Prize.
John Gushue is a news writer for CBC.ca in St. John's. E-mail: surf at thetelegram.com. Web: johngushue.typepad.com.
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